It was 1918 in Chicago and I was sitting in the hospital by Edwards' side as he lay dying with his mother laying in the bed across the room. His father and mine had both died in the first wave of the Spanish influenza. My mother had died many years ago and all I had left was my father, but he was now gone too. As I sat there, I thought of the very best parts of my life up until this moment.

I was at a ball that my father brought me to. I didn't entirely want to be there but he insisted I come out and socialize with my peers. But I'm much too clumsy to dance properly, so instead I sat off to the side at a table watching as my father talked with one of his fellow police officers. I heard rather than saw someone sit down next to me.

"Hello, what's a beautiful woman like you doing so alone here?" a smooth voice said from beside me.

I turn to face the speaker and as I looked him in the eyes I found myself getting lost in the deepest green eyes I have ever seen. He was a human Adonis with a perfectly shaped face and tousled bronze hair that I had the wildest urge to run my fingers through to see if it was as soft as it looked.

"The thing is, I don't dance. I'm too much of a klutz, I'd accidentally stomp on your feet all night," I reply almost breathlessly.

"It can't be that bad, it's all in the lead," he says as he holds out his hand, a silent question burning in his eyes.

"I'm Edward by the way. Edward Mason" he introduces himself.

"Isabella Swan, but please call me Bella" I reply back

I reached for his hand and let him lead me to the middle of the floor. We twirled together the whole night and I was surprised to find dancing wasn't much of an issue, when I was dancing with this man at any rate. By the end of the night we were getting lost in each other's embrace.

After that evening, he started taking me on strolls through the park where we would just talk about anything and everything. It was just two weeks that he asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. Even that early on I could feel myself falling for him.

It was a bright and early Saturday morning. We had decided to sit in the grass by the pond which was located in the middle of the park. There was a slight breeze that was ruffling his bronze hair. He suddenly look over to me and we just stared into each others eyes for a long minute.

"Isabella?" he said my full name quietly in a questioning tone.

"Yes, Edward?"

"Over these last few weeks I have started to develop feelings for you. When I saw you at the ball just a couple of weeks ago, I thought you were the most beautiful girl I have ever seen and after getting to know you I have realized one thing, I have fallen in love with you. Would you be my girlfriend?"

I was stunned and elated by his confession as I breathed out my response to him. "Edward I feel the same way about you too. I love you too."

"He smiled the most brilliant smile I have seen since we met and leaned in and kissed me very tenderly.

Both of our parents were ecstatic at the news. My father worried I would never find someone who I can connect with as I have never shown interest in any of the other boys in town. His mother already accepted me as a daughter. Just 5 months later Edward had popped the question and asked me to be his wife. I didn't think life could get any better. I had found my soulmate and we would be married shortly after I turned 18.

It had started out as an ordinary day. Edward and I had started to take a walk to the park as we have done many times. We had stopped under the old willow and as soon as I looked over to him, I saw him getting down on one knee. I felt my heart stutter and my breath catch.

"Isabella Marie Swan. I love you with everything in me. You are my soulmate, my love and my life and I want nothing more than to spend every waking minute with you by my side. Will you make me the happiest man on earth and marry me?"

My eyes filled with tears as I whispered out a yes. His green eyes sparkled with a triumphant joy and he picked me up and spun me around. Once I was on my feet again he kissed me with such a passion my head started to spin.

Our parents had started the wedding plans soon thereafter, but unfortunately our happiness did not last long after that. Just three weeks into the wedding planning Edwards father and mine came down with the Spanish influenza and unfortunately had passed in that first wave that tore through Chicago. Elizabeth caught it not too long as she barely left her husband's side during it.

Against his mother's wishes Edward and I stayed with her most of the days. Her health was declining rapidly. Edward soon caught it and was admitted. He tried to get me to stay away and keep me from catching it but I refused to leave his side. He was all I had left in life and I refused to leave him until the doctors came in and told me to go home for the night. His health was also declining very rapidly, at a much more alarming rate than his mother. He was unconscious for most of the time.

"I love you Edward, please don't leave me, I need you" I whispered to his sleeping form. His breathing stuttered then and resumed his normal rate. The tears started to quickly flow then.

A nurse came in soon after and told me to go home and get some rest. I didn't want to leave but I didn't have much of a choice. Once I left the hospital that night I went to his home and curled up in his bed without much hope of being able to get some sleep. Once I did manage to fall asleep the nightmares came full force every time I tried to close my eyes. I eventually cried myself to a unrestful sleep hours later.

As soon as it was morning I hurried to the hospital and went straight to his room. My heart dropped straight to my stomach when I saw both his bed and his mother's bed were empty. As I backed out of the room I bumped into one of the doctors as he was leaving at the end of his shift, his name badge reading "Dr. Cullen." He was pale and withdrawn looking with pale blonde hair golden eyes and dark circles under those eyes.

"Where did Edward Masen and his mother Elizabeth Masen go? They were here just last night"

In a voice that was too calm for my liking he informed me both had passed last night.

I didn't let him finish what he was saying. I backed away and ran from the hospital. My only thought was to get as far away from the cursed place as I could. The pain rippled through me at the loss. I had lost everyone I had cared about. I felt so alone in the world that I didn't care where I went, I just ran.

Before I realized it, I was in the forest behind the town church. I just kept going until I eventually tripped over a branch on the forest floor. It was only when I smelled the blood that I realized I had cut my hand open in the fall. I didn't bother getting up from where I fell, I just laid where I was crying. The weight of the loss of not only my soulmate but all the family I have known weighed heavy on my mind. I had not concept of time passing. I wasn't until it got dark that I realized how long I had been in here. I still didn't get up though, I could bring it in me to go home just yet.

It was only when the sun started to rise among the trees that I decided I should head back to the house but as I was about to stand up I heard a branch break behind me. I sat bolt upright just then disoriented from both grief as well as my sudden alertness.

"What have we here? What's a young lady doing so far in the forest alone?"

I had frozen as soon as he spoke. He had the voice of an angel, smooth as honey and rang like a bell. I turned to face him then. He had the most perfect face I had seen, even more than Edward's. His skin was extremely pale too. It reminded me of someone, but I could not place where or how in the state I was in. His eyes, however, sent a shiver of fear down my spine. His eyes were blood red with light shadows under them as if he had not received a decent nights rest. I stayed right where I was frozen to the spot as he crept forward.

"I ran here from the hospital," I informed this stranger.

"You look rather upset." He replied quietly as he crept closer to me.

"I am sir, you see, I just lost my fiancé, father and my future in-laws to the Spanish influenza." I don't know what made me spill all that, something about him made me feel compelled to talk

"How about I introduce myself? My name is James. I can help you if you would like? I can make the pain go away" he offered in an almost seductive, his voice almost purring at the end. He held his hand out to me. There was something in his eyes that didn't feel right. His kindness felt wrong somehow, like there was a darker reason behind it.

"How?" I inquired, adrenaline started to course through my veins and my heart started beating faster.

"Do you want the pain to go away? Yes or no?"

"Yes, but how?"

He moved in such a blur that I didn't see what was happening. I felt a sharp rip at my throat. It was then that a fire started to spread from my neck. He was burning me. I screamed out, begging him to stop the fire, but he never did. I screamed and cried and begged for him to just kill me already, but the fire just raged hotter and hotter. It spread from my neck all the way through my body. I lay there on the forest floor burning and screaming for what felt like eternity.

Eventually the fire felt like it was finally fading. It first left my hands and feet. But as it was retreating, the fire in my heart felt as if it was intensifying. I didn't understand how that could be possible. My heart was racing so quickly it felt like it would tear right through my chest.

My heart finally gave up and stopped beating. I opened my eyes then and got a clear look around me. I was bewildered at what I had experienced, I should be dead, but I didn't feel dead. I had no heartbeat but yet I was still alive. To my right the strange man, James I remembered, was sitting there.

"What happened to me?"

"You're a vampire now. Yes they exist." He must have seen the skepticism and disbelief in my eyes.